April 23, 2011

A place to discuss the sports stories that aren't making news, share links that aren't quite front-page material, and diagram plays on your hand. Remember to count to five Mississippi before commenting in anger.

The Flyers will be starting their third goalie in game 6 against Buffalo. Sergei Bobrovsky, who played 54 regular season games, has barely been on the bench since game 2. They'll also be playing for their lives against a Buffalo team that seems to have gotten hot at the right time.

It's kind of shocking to watch a team completely abandon players who were successful in the regular season at the first sign of trouble. Bobrovsky was effective in game 1. Boucher played wonderfully through games 2-4. Now, they'll start Michael Leighton, who started one regular season game this season and looked solid in relief in game 5.

It's a little mind-boggling to watch this, and other curious Laviolette moves including inserting Zac Rinaldo into the lineup in game 5. Rinaldo has never played in the NHL before and is the AHL version of current Flyer and line mate Daniel Carcillo. It's as if he's trying to reinvent how to coach in the playoffs, with curious results so far.

I haven't watched any of those games, but I am pretty excited for Buffalo. The crowds gathered around the HSBC Arena for the away games are awesome. I gotta support that kind of love. And Buffalo needs it way more than Philly, who will shrug at a series loss and turn their attention to the best pitching in baseball.

Best save of the game in the early going made by Michael Ryder, a forward.

They just mentioned on the Hockey Night in Canada broadcast that in the summer, Ryder plays net for his ball-hockey team.
They won the provincial championship, but he couldn't participate in the national championships because he had to go to his Bruins training camp.